Please consider this as feedback. I'm also reporting a few bugs here, this is why I put it into support forum. Thank you.

I believe sniper rifles in Call of Duty: Ghosts (on PC) are made just for show, just to fill the "sniper rifle" slot, because people would be amazed if sniper rifles were removed. Reasons to believe they weren't made to be played with seriously:

1. How often do you see snipers of high levels in the game? I don't. I only notice one or two at largest maps in hardcore TDM games, and its a rare occasion. It seems, every experienced player already understands that in any, absolutely any game mode using LMG, AR or SMG will get them best results. On a side note: when was the last time you saw someone with a shotgun?

2. Map layout completely eliminates any possibility of sniping - all interesting spots, rocks, boxes are all out of reach, you can only run around in a very small, limited space, you can't even get on top of a table. Sniping can be successful if you find an unexpected position, this game doesn't have such - you need to move after each shot or you'll be killed (maps are so small enemies literary spawn next to you and come for revenge).

3. Terrible FPS drops while aiming down the scope. Funny thing: I lowered some settings and it seems I get stable 60-90 FPS all the time (no FRAPS yet). Except the moment when I look down the sniper rifle sight (multi-zoom). When I do, my frame rate drops to horrible 15-20 FPS, it literary is a slide show with enemies jumping 2-3 meters per frame. The best part - it only stutters so bad when I try to move my aim, scope sway doesn't cause such dramatic FPS drops.

4. I believe, this game engine wasn't made with snipers in mind. You get worst accuracy, hitting someone doesn't guarantee hurting them (some bullets fly through for no reason), when you shoot someone's suit, you miss their body in 80% cases, unless its through the middle of the chest, L115 + chrome barrel + AP bullets do not guarantee a kill with 1 bullet - some survive being hit in the chest.

5. Best part: how to avoid getting killed while fighting a sniper at close distance: go prone! I shot a guy who was on his knee (crouched), the bullet went straight through him. Killcam shows he went prone while shooting and the bullet actually went over his head.

Simply speaking, its very hard to play with a sniper rifle, its very limiting compared to Assault Rifles. You'll be outgunned every time in Core modes. In hardcore modes (there is a shocking amount of Hardcore modes - 3, no domination, no HQ, just TMD, kill confirmed and SnR) sniper rifle is the only gun that guarantees a kill if you hit. But most ARs and even SMGs will also kill with a single bullet, and considering they're damn accurate even across the map and the fact map layout eliminates any good camping spots, sniper rifles can't really shine anywhere.

Blew off some steam

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it!

PS: yeah, guille suit. 35% completed, approximately. Gave up on balls of steel 2, it gives only an icon while ruining your KD completely.

PPS: I didn't write about extinction challenges yet, get this: you get a challenge to spend $6k while fighting $5k worth amount of aliens, this basically means if you didn't bring any money with you (as in my case) this challenge is simply impossible to complete. Killed every one of them, spent $5.9k moneys (critical hits) but didn't have enough to finish challenge - had $300 on me, cheapest object was $500 for a trap.

Thanks for taking the time to post detailed Feedback :]. I can see how discouraging it may be to play as a sniper, I am an assault gal so I have yet to experience the joys of the sniper . Anyway, we are always looking for ways to improve the game and I'll forward your post to the appropriate parties for review ^_^.

A few details on FPS drops: whenever I see major part of the map, my FPS goes down from a stable 91 fps (max) to 50-60 FPS (sometimes 45). When I use scope to zoom in, FPS drops by 30-50%, from 50 to 30 and from 45 to 20-ish. While having 30 fps it feels as if I'm having a very bad refresh rate, or FPS around 14, as it lags horribly (30 should be fluid).

Feedback on ACOG on sniper rifles (L115, the other Bolt-action sniper rifle):

ACOG on sniper rifles is very unstable, unless you're lying on the ground. Far more sway than a full scope. I'm thinking my concentration perk isn't affecting it... could be wrong, though, maybe it sways half across the screen without concentration (perk description doesn't say anything about reducing only sniper rifle scope sway, not ACOG, I used ACOG to use a sniper rifle kind of like a shotgun and marksman rifle combination, ridiculously hard to hit).

About sniper rifle being overpowered: as long as you can hit in the chest, its a kill. This isn't "overpowered", this is how its supposed to be. You can do the same with 3-4 bullets from non-recoiling guns, too, and they're easier to use in most cases.

I managed to significantly reduce the effect of slide show with scope by enabling adaptive V-sync (no G-Sync module here yet, waiting for it) in Nvidia control panel. Not sure its the v-sync that helped, and not moving to variable-zoom scope, but generally game feels much more fluid now.

Again, on "overpowered" topic - my pistol kills with 1 bullet, does this mean its overpowered? I'll tell you what is overpowered: incernacy grenades in hardcore - they have insane (truly insane) explosion radius and they always kill anyone caught in the blast (often you see 3+ killed with it). But thats another topic.

I reached a conclusion that staying quiet about feedback is wrong. There are unhappy players voicing their opinions, and there are happy players not doing that. And as a result, unhappy players sometimes get what they want, and happy players become unhappy, except that there was a majority of happy players. They just don't care enough to go and praise every little thing in the game. So I'm joining the unhappy ones and sharing my (both negative and positive) feedback (even if its mostly negative).

I'm getting misses when I should be hitting people and I'm getting hitmarkers with the L115 far more than I should. Using the Thermal I'm hitting someone who's barely stick their head out and I still can land a OHK. There are plenty of good spots to snipe and I'm pretty handy with the pistols so moving around isn't an issue. But getting my shots to actually register and when they do register getting a OHK is proving tough.

Same problem, sometimes getting a hit is unpredictable. When the target is stationary and not looking your way, its simple - just aim and pull the trigger. But when target is moving... I tried shooting before, after, in front, at back, sideways, lots of combinations but every single shot (especially those up close) is a lottery at best. It either hits or misses, sometimes bullets fly simply straight through the target.